| The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus – one of the Seven Wonders of the World – is destroyed by arson |
 |
356 BC |
| Pope Pontian succeeds Urban I as the eighteenth pope. Five years later, after being exiled by the Roman Emperor Maximus
Thrax to labour in the mines of Sardinia, he would resign, to make the election of a new pope possible – the first pope to do so. It
allowed an orderly transition in the Church of Rome, ending a schism that had existed for eighteen years; but one month later he would be beaten
to death with sticks |
|
230 |
| Roman Emperor Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar and co–ruler |
|
285 |
| Many thousands are killed when an earthquake in the region of Crete, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme),
causes a destructive tsunami that affects the coasts of Libya and Egypt, especially Alexandria |
|
365 |
| King Louis IX of France puts an end to the revolt of his vassals Henry III of England and Hugh X of Lusignan at the
Battle of Taillebourg, approximately 50 miles north of Bordeaux |
|
1242 |
| Lancastrian King Henry IV defeats a rebel army led by Henry Percy ('Harry Hotspur') from Northumberland, at the
Battle of Shrewsbury – the first time that English archers had fought each other on English soil. It reaffirmed the effectiveness of the
longbow and ended the Percys' challenge to King Henry; Hotspur, who had been instrumental in the deposition of Richard II in favour of Henry
but had subsequently fallen out with the new regime, was killed |
|
1403 |
| The French invasion of the Isle of Wight – the last of many such attempts – is repulsed, but only after the
loss of the Mary Rose (on 19 July) |
|
1545 |
| Spanish navigator Álvaro Mendaña, on his second voyage into the Pacific (from Peru) in search of
Terra Australis, discovers the Marquesas Islands |
|
1595 |
| Dorgon, a Manchu prince and regent of the early Qing dynasty, issues an edict ordering all Han Chinese men to shave their
foreheads and braid the rest of their hair into a queue identical to those of the Manchus |
|
1645 |
| Five ships of the Royal Navy attack the Spanish city of Malaga – seriously damaging the Cathedral; meeting little
resistance, the English destroy the greater part of the city's munition supply and spike all the harbour guns |
|
1656 |
| Pope Clement XIV dissolves the Society of Jesus |
|
1773 |
| Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, ending a six–year war |
|
1774 |
| Napoleon defeats an Ottoman–Mamluk army ('the Mamelukes') at the Battle of the Pyramids, near Cairo |
|
1798 |
| Belgium breaks away from the Netherlands; George Christian Frederick Leopold of Saxe–Coburg–Gotha is
proclaimed as Leopold I, first King of the Belgians |
|
1831 |
| First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas Junction, Virginia): the first major battle of the American Civil War begins, and ends
in a victory for the Confederates |
|
1861 |
| Wild Bill Hickok shoots and kills Davis Tutt in the market square of Springfield, Missouri, in what is regarded as the
first Wild West showdown |
|
1865 |
| The James–Younger gang pulls off the first successful train robbery in the American 'Old West' |
|
1873 |
| After rioting by workers on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and nine deaths at the hands of the Maryland militia,
workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stage a sympathy strike that is met with an assault by the state militia |
|
1877 |
| Battersea Bridge is opened |
|
1890 |
| The Tate Gallery, presented to the nation by Sir Henry Tate, opens |
|
1897 |
| The Trans–Siberian Railway is completed after 13 years' work |
|
1904 |
| In Ostend, Belgium, a Frenchman named Louis Rigolly, in a 15–litre Gobron–Brillié, becomes the first
person to drive a car at over 100 miles per hour |
|
1904 |
| Alfred Dreyfus is made a Knight of the Legion d'Honneur – nine days after being exonerated
of the charge of treason, of which he was convicted by court martial eleven years previously |
|
1906 |
| 88 lives are lost when the passenger steamer SS Columbia sinks after colliding with the steam schooner San Pedro
off Shelter Cove, California |
|
1907 |
| Alexander Kerensky, a moderate leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, becomes Minister–Chairman of the
short–lived Russian Provisional Government ("Prime Minister of Russia") |
|
1917 |
| In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching human evolution in class
and fined $100 |
|
1925 |
| At Pendine Sands in Carmarthenshire, Malcolm Campbell becomes the first person to exceed 150 mph on land – achieving
a two–way average speed of 150.33 mph in a Sunbeam 350HP |
|
1925 |
| The Imperial Economic Conference opens in Ottawa |
|
1932 |
| In the Spanish Civil War, the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia is constituted – establishing
an anarcho–syndicalist economy in Catalonia |
|
1936 |
| American troops land on Guam – a US territory in the Mariana Islands, captured by the Japanese in 1941 –
starting a battle that will end on August 10 when the US forces recapture the territory |
|
1944 |
| German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg, and four of his fellow–conspirators, are executed for their parts in
the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, which had culminated in a bomb attack at his headquarters the previous day |
|
1944 |
| The Geneva Conference (set up to settle outstanding issues resulting from the Korean War and the First Indochina War)
partitions Vietnam into two states – North and South Vietnam |
|
1954 |
| Britain, USA and the World Bank refuse aid for the building of the Aswan Dam to President Nasser |
|
1954 |
| NS Savannah – the first nuclear–powered merchant ship – is launched in the USA as a showcase
for Dwight D. Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' initiative |
|
1959 |
| Francis Chichester arrives in New York, having crossed the Atlantic in a record 40 days |
|
1960 |
| Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, piloting Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American astronaut (in a suborbital flight) |
|
1961 |
| The Runcorn Bridge across the River Mersey is opened |
|
1961 |
| Gwynfor Evans becomes the first Welsh Nationalist MP, winning Carmarthen from Labour in a by–election caused by
the death of Lady Megan Lloyd George, daughter of David Lloyd George – having come third in the general election on 31 March |
|
1966 |
| At 02:56 GMT (still 20 July in the USA), Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the Moon |
|
1969 |
| The Aswan High Dam is completed, having taken 11 years to construct |
|
1970 |
| The Provisional IRA detonates 22 bombs in the space of 80 minutes, in central Belfast, killing nine and injuring 130.
This would come to be known as Bloody Friday |
|
1972 |
| In Lillehammer, Norway, agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, kill a Moroccan waiter whom they mistakenly
believe to have been the chief of operations of Black September, the organisation responsible for the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre |
|
1973 |
| France explodes a nuclear device at Maruroa Atoll |
|
1973 |
| Christopher Ewart–Biggs, British ambassador to the Irish Republic, is killed by an IRA land mine outside his Dublin
residence |
|
1976 |
| A Libyan tank raid on the town of Sallum, in the extreme north–west of Egypt, begins a four–day war between
the two countries. Relations had deteriorated after Anwar Sadat rebuffed Muammar Gaddafi's entreaties to unify the two countries, pursuing
instead a peace settlement with Israel in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 |
|
1977 |
| Jay Silverheels (Tonto in The Lone Ranger) becomes the first Native American to be commemorated in the
Hollywood Walk of Fame |
|
1979 |
| The lowest temperature in an inhabited location on Earth is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica: minus 89.2 °C
(minus 128.6 °F) |
|
1983 |
| Poland frees 652 political prisoners |
|
1984 |
| Ayatollah Khomeini accepts UN Security Council resolution 598 and calls for a ceasefire in the war with Iraq |
|
1988 |
| 25 people die from suffocation after Taiwan's military police forces illegal immigrants from mainland China into
the sealed holds of a fishing boat for repatriation to Fujian province |
|
1990 |
| Pink Floyd demolish a symbolic wall at a concert in Berlin, while the real wall itself comes down |
|
1990 |
| Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to Moscow, after a 20–year exile and a two–month trek across Russia |
|
1994 |
| 11 people are killed, and more than 120 injured, when a pedestrian footbridge becomes overcrowded as they leave a
firework display in the Japanese city of Akashi |
|
2001 |
| Tanya Streeter, a native of the Cayman Islands (an overseas territory of the UK) breaks the world record for the depth
of a dive on one breath – 122m (400ft), taking 3 minutes and 38 seconds, off Providenciales Island in the Turks & Caicos Islands.
Sports Illustrated magazine names her "the world's most perfect athlete" |
|
2003 |
| Tension rises in London as four more bombs go off on tube trains and a bus, just two weeks after 56 people were killed
in a similar series of attacks; but this time no one is killed |
|
2005 |
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – seventh and last in the series – becomes the
fastest–selling novel in history on its publication |
|
2007 |
| Ram Baran Yadav is elected as the first President of Nepal, in a second round of voting (taking office two days later).
He would serve until October 2015 |
|
2008 |
| NASA's Space Shuttle program ends, as Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center to complete its final mission |
|
2011 |
| Turkish–American adventurer Erden Eruç completes the first solo human–powered circumnavigation of the
world at Bodega Bay, some 50 miles north of San Francisco |
|
2012 |
